


where everyone finally gets what they want

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 12:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16933167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: Wishes, dreams do come true. | Written for/second place winner of Challenge 13 at then_theres_us on LJ many moons ago.





	where everyone finally gets what they want

> I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room  
>  where everyone finally gets what they want.  
>  You said _Tell me about your books, your visions made_  
>  of flesh and light and I said _This is the Moon. This is_  
>  the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you  
>  there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar  
>  cube... We were in the gold room where everyone  
>  finally gets what they want, so I said _What do you  
>  want, sweetheart?_ and you said _Kiss me._

Rose remembered being very insistent at bedtime when she was small.

Jackie was not what you’d call an avid reader, but for Rose she was willing to make an effort. _The Grimm’s Fairy Tales_ was well thumbed, the pages mussed by eager hands still sticky from popsicles or damp from the bath. The Hans Christian Andersen collection suffered from a broken spine and a torn appendix. And _The Adventures of Ali Baba_ (a highly sanitized collection; Jackie had been careful when selecting it) would always have grains of sand trapped between its covers from the times Rose would drag it to the park, propping it up by the sandbox as she built her castles.

It was funny how old memories resurfaced in the strangest situations. She was thinking of that magical Arabian cave full of forbidden treasures now. As she stared at the now familiar blue doors, she rolled the password over her tongue.

“Sesame,” she murmured to herself, her lips curving up into a smile. 

 

She went exploring.

No matter how many rooms the Doctor showed her, it seemed the TARDIS was always hiding another just to the left. An endless stretch of hallways and staircases, doors made of every kind of wood and some of metal and some of something she didn’t have a name for. Rooms upon rooms full of dusty furniture made a galaxy away, a generation after she was born. Closets full of clothes that still smelled of the people who had worn them last, the ghosts of past companions clinging to their sleeves. 

She never worried about getting lost. The TARDIS kept its eye on her, and when she got too confused or too desperate for a cup of tea, she’d find herself in a hall she recognized. Every time this happened she thought of the old tale of Beauty and the Beast, with its enchanted castle capable of rearranging itself.

Today she found herself in what amounted to a walk-in jewelry box. There were huge wooden chests against the wall straight out of _Treasure Island_ , and when she opened them she wasn’t at all surprised to find strings of pearls and Spanish doubloons. For someone who didn’t have a real concept of money, the Doctor could very easily buy himself an island in the Bahamas with some of the nick-knacks he “collected”. 

A gold oil lamp sat atop an especially tall bookcase that showcased Fabergé eggs and diamond tiaras. Rose wanted badly to reach for it, to polish it with her warm fingers and see if anything magical happened. But she climbed up enough furniture in her day-to-day life with the Doctor, and didn’t especially feel up to precariously hanging off anything today. She settled for a glittering tiara, carefully adjusting it with the aid of an ivory-backed mirror. 

It was an incongruous look, combined with her green sports jacket and messy bun, but she rather liked it. Sort of a tabloid-esque mug shot of a modern princess caught sleazing it up in a corner pub after a footie match.

“Here you are.”

She startled at the unexpected interruption to her daydream. He was leaning in the doorway, one arm braced against the jamb, in a way that was so very _him_ — but the other him, the old him — and it gave her a twinge of sadness. She felt a brief flash of confusing grief for a man who had died, yet who still stood before her. 

“Sorry, I was just curious,” she said quickly, reaching to take off the tiara.

“Leave it on,” he said with a smile. “Looks good on you. Very glam rocker princess.”

“Where’ve you been? It’s been ages.”

“Poking my freckled nose into places that are _technically_ none of my business, but interesting nonetheless.”

“Remember the one about curiosity and the cat?” Rose warned.

“Ah, but I’ve got more lives than a cat,” the Doctor rebutted casually, straightening and stepping into the room. “This started out as my Arabia room, but I seem to have gotten distracted at some point during the organization and thrown in some Caribbean and Russian bits into the mix.”

“So I noticed,” Rose said with a glance at the Fabergé eggs and treasure chests. 

“Been keeping yourself busy, eh?” He took in the light layer of dust across her sleeves and shoulders, reaching out to brush a cobweb from behind her left ear. 

“Yes, and I’ve come to two conclusions. One, you could make a fortune giving tours of this place to history buffs. And two, we need to hire a maid.”

“It’s true that I’m not the most careful of housekeepers,” he grimaced, now brushing dust from her shoulders. “Course, who has time to mop and polish when the whole universe is waiting just outside the door?”

“If _anyone_ could find the time, Doctor, I’m sure you could.” She giggled at his expression. “Was that pun a bit much? Sorry.”

“C’mon,” he took her hand in his, their fingers sliding easily together. “I rediscovered something I think you’ll like.”

 

It was a ballroom. Well, not technically a ballroom. More of a dance hall, the kind you saw in old movies from the 50s, where girls in poodle skirts and boys with greased-back hair jitterbugged to jukebox tunes. And there was the requisite jukebox, plugged into the wall and glowing with bright neon hues in the dimness of the room.

Rose paused in the doorway and started laughing. He turned to stare at her in surprise.

“What?”

“You,” she giggled. “You really are something else, Doctor. Just when I think I can’t be surprised by you anymore, you show me something like this. You really are a rockabilly punk, aren’t you?”

His grin in the darkness was a brilliant white. “Just wait until you get out on the floor.” His hand tightened around hers and he pulled her to the center, spinning her with a twist of his arm and wrist. 

“I’m not dressed for this,” she protested, still laughing. “I need a skirt with lots of flounce, and some fancy pumps.”

“Balderdash,” he said. “…There’s a word I’ve never used before. I sort of like it.” His other arm looped around her waist, pulling her closer as he began a simple slow dance.

“What about poppycock?”

“That’s a good one, too,” he conceded with a serious nod. She giggled again. She felt predisposed to giggle today. Maybe it was the whimsical feel of childhood dreams in front of the TV during Elvis marathons coming to life, or the fact that she was wearing a diamond tiara from the time when Russia still had czars, or just the way he smiled at her in the dusky light.

The jukebox started, though she had no idea how he managed that one from across the room. It was some soft Billie Holiday piece, her husky voice clear and close in the semi-darkness. And then the lights began. At first she thought it was a disco ball, or at least the Time Lord equivalent of a disco ball, and she started to giggle again before she realized it was a projection of the night sky. 

She looked up at the ceiling, at the twinkling, swirling lights of a dancing galaxy, and had a hard time catching her breath. This wasn’t just some simple projection like she’d seen in planetariums. Somehow the very life and energy of the universe had been captured, recorded so perfectly it was if she was watching it firsthand. 

“That green swirl, right there,” the Doctor murmured in her ear, swaying her slightly to the subtle beat in the music. “ _That_ is called the Titan’s Eye. It’s a huge energy storm, a vast cloud of electricity that has been spinning for over two million years.”

“How do you do it?” Rose said, leaning in closer, breathing in the scent of his aftershave and that indefinable tang that could only be described as time. 

“Do what, exactly?” the Doctor said with another smile.

“How do you…” she paused, struggling to find the right words. “When I was little, when it was just me and Mum and a leaky fridge, I had all of these dreams. Fantasy worlds I’d escape to, where my Dad was still alive and we had flying carpets and lived in a castle and I’d have talking pets.”

The Doctor was silent, but she could tell he was listening. Even in the darkness she could feel his intensity, the powerful focus of an immortal.

“I’d go up to the roof of our building sometimes, to stare up at the sky at night. I’d wish on every star I could see—though, middle of London, it’s not like I could see all that many...”

“What did you wish for, Rose?” Surely, he knew the answer already.

“I wished to escape, but more than that I wished that magic was real. That the world could be a brighter, madder, more wonderful place than it seemed to be. I wished that _I_ could be more than what I was, more important, more special, and not just some common chav on a street corner.”

His hand tightened at her waist. “You’ve never been common, Rose.”

She smiled, but he could tell she didn’t fully agree. “And then you come along and… How can a single person change everything? How do you constantly show me things that I’ve always wished were real? This place is… It’s Ali Baba’s cave and the Beast’s castle and those old Cliff and Elvis movies I’d watch with Mum and it’s the universe. It’s everything wonderful and… and bloody _impossible_ , and you let me inside. I didn’t even need the password.”

“Nope, no password necessary,” he said, “You just had to save me from shop window dummies and talking plastic lava.”

She laughed, that wonderful loud full-bodied laugh that was so purely Rose. She threw her head back. Stared up at the waltzing galaxy. Pressed her curves to his angles. 

“And what are you wishing for now, Rose Tyler?” he asked, as Billie Holiday finished her smoky song.

“I wish you’d kiss me.”

_How could I ever give this up?_ Rose thought, smiling against his lips as his nose brushed against hers, as his hair tickled her forehead and his arms wrapped around her. _How did I ever find the man who makes all of my crazy, ridiculous, impossible dreams come true?_


End file.
